SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 5, 1885

SECULAR.

—The entire town of Pinos Altos, Mexico, has been destroyed by fire.

—Russia will soon build an 11,000-ton iron-clad war ship, at a cost of $3,250,000.

—No shut down of a brewery has yet been reported as an outcome of the hard times.

—The police of New York City recently arrested sixteen persons who were indulging in opium-smoking in a room ten feet square.

—The banks of New York have an abundance of surplus funds on hand. It is asserted that there is more idle money there at this time than was ever known before.

—The late severe cold froze and ruined for market $20,000 worth of oysters in Prince's Bay, N. Y.

—Four persons have been arrested in London, who it is thought were connected with the late conspiracy to blow up the English Parliament.

—The United States now stands third among the silk manufacturing countries of the world, its last annual production amounting to $35,000,000.

—Dr. Peter Collier, formerly chemist of the Agricultural Bureau at Washington, recently declared that sugar can be produced from sorghum at one cent per pound.

—Dispatches from points on the British Coast say that severe storms have prevailed there recently, causing the wreck of a number of vessels and the loss of many lives.

—The snowfall on the Italian Alps is said to be the heaviest within the memory of man. Many villages have been destroyed, and so far as known 300 lives have been lost.

—Sixty tons of rock are reported to have fallen from the Natural Bridge, in Virginia, the other afternoon, with deafening roar, but the curved lines of the bridge were not disturbed.

—A fire in the rear of the Indiana Insane Asylum the morning of Jan. 27, destroyed the engine room, laundry, bakery, and some smaller apartments. Loss to the institution, $75,000. No one was injured.

—The London News says that the American Government has advanced claims to land in the Fiji Islands in behalf of its subjects who had settled there before the annexation of the territory by the British.

—A severe storm was reported Jan. 28, on the west coast of New Foundland, which did much damage to the fishing vessels. At last account, twenty-three boats were missing, whose crews aggregate about fifty men.

—General Grant's health is much improved. He contemplates writing his recollections of his period from the fall of Sumpter to the close of his presidential career, including the secret history of his dealings with Andrew Johnson.

—A fire was discovered the morning of Jan. 26, at the National Capitol, in the collection of books and records stored under the roof of the House of Representatives. The fire was soon extinguished and the damage done was trifling.

—Two islands that were thrown up by the great Java earthquake last year have again sunk out of sight and below the deep water line of navigation. The volcano Merapi, which started the previous disturbance, is once more unusually active.

—The Committee on Post-office Matters will, it is understood, favorably report a bill to Congress to reduce newspaper postage from two cents to one cent per pound, when the papers are sent from the office of publication, or from news agents to actual subscribers.

—The silver vaults at the Sub-Treasury of San Francisco are taxed to the fullest capacity, and the Secretary of the Treasury is considering the question of transferring from them about $40,000,000 in standard dollars to the new silver vault in the Treasury Department.

—It has been estimated that there were 16,000,000 centals, or 800,000 tons of wheat in California on Jan. 1. This is rapidly diminishing, however, through the activity of the wheat shippers. The wharves at Nevada Dock, Port Costa, and Wheatport, are now crowded with ships waiting to be loaded.

—Successful experiments lately tried in England have demonstrated a method of slaughtering domestic animals for food, which relieves the victim from all pain. Carbonic acid, generated from charcoal, is administered, which produces stupefaction, and, it is claimed, does not in the slightest degree affect the meat.

—A strange freak of nature has come to light in Cleveland, Ohio. A two-year-old girl of that city has two tongues. The second one has grown from the root, and on top of the first, and is nearly the size of the real tongue. The child is reported as suffering no inconvenience from the unnatural production.

—A farmer in Berkley County, West Virginia, whose chickens mysteriously disappeared at certain times, placed some dynamite torpedoes on his premises. The following night an explosion occurred, arousing the family. Upon going out, they found the hen-house completely destroyed, and the dead body of a neighboring negro, lying by, horribly mangled.

—Information has been received by the Home Secretary at London, that the dynamiters design to blow up the British Museum.

—Forty persons were killed and many injured by a collision last week on the railroad near Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

—Iron and brass mills in Ohio are starting up, and there is a more favorable outlook in the metal trade than has existed for many months.

—Another negro exodus from North Carolina has begun. Reports say that the people are leaving by hundreds. Arkansas is the objective point.

—The cylinder-head of the engine at the Dobson Carpet Mills in Philadelphia, burst last Friday, throwing 1,500 operatives out of employment, and causing a loss to the firm of $20,000.

—An express train of four coaches on the Reading Railroad was wrecked Jan. 30, near Greenville, N. J. Seventy passengers were on the train, of whom twenty-five were wounded, some very seriously.

—A natural gas explosion occurred last week in Pittsburg, entirely demolishing a saloon, and badly wrecking four other buildings. Twenty-four persons are reported wounded, five of whom it is thought will die.

—The uproar and violence provoked by the work of Mormon missionaries in North Carolina has led to the introduction of a bill in the State Legislature making it a felony to preach or teach the doctrine of polygamy.